Show me the whole photo album first before I start reading!

 

The 4th edition of Caissa’s Discovery Bay Open Rapid last Saturday went smooth. We were glad to again have guests coming over from Shenzhen and we were also happy to see some of Hong Kong’s highest rated players, including ‘local chess celebrity’ Daniel Lam and International Master Marcos Llaneza from Spain, join us in our cozy corner of Hong Kong.

 

 

We also look back with modest pride to our very own Caissa members, especially our youth players, who definitely made a strong impact and grossed 8 out of the 11 prizes available!

As always in our Open events, players of all age categories were mixed and played against one another, young against more experienced. Youth players, however, played for prizes in their respective age categories of U8 (2007 or earlier), U10 (2005/6) and U12 (2003/4).

 

 

In the U8 category Noah (1.5 points) and Kian and Ritvik (both 2 points – note that Ritvik had missed the first 3 rounds) got used after several rounds to the nerves of tournament play and as they began to play slower they started collecting points.

 

 

 

It was however our guest player from Shenzen, Jin Hao, also with 2 points, who won 2nd prize ahead of Kian and Ritvik on tie-break. Yet, with 3 points, the Champion of U8 was Caissa’s young talent Seth. Well done!

 

 

In the U10 category we had a mix of very experienced players as well as some with very little or no tournament experience at all.

 

 

Kevin was among the first-timers and his 1.5 points is not a bad result at all in this strong field, including adults. Yat Hei, Samuel and Pak all scored 3 points but the 4th prize went to Harold with 3.5 points. Mei Jing defended the honour of all girls in and around DB well by scoring 4 points, ending 12th overall and 3rd in the U10 group.

 

 

Miguel Angel, who was leading this age category until the last round, found Daniel in round 7 to be an obstacle too strong and by losing Miguel Angel ended 7th place overall and 2nd place in U10 with 4.5 points. Teddy did good business in the last round by defeating soon-to-be DB resident Matthew and with 5 points he ended 6th overall and became Champion of this age group.

 

 

The U12 age group also comprised of some very experienced as well as very new players. Samira scored 2 points and Jay with 3 points ended 4th in this age group. James Kwong with 5 points managed to end 3rd overall and as such he was entitled to get 3rd prize in the Open group. Herewith Toby, with 4 points could collect 1st prize in the U12 group and Richard, also with 4 points, collected 2nd prize.

 

 

In the Open group then, 3rd prize went to James Kwong, 2nd prize to Daniel with 6 points, only having conceded a loss against the new DB Open Rapid Champion IM Marcos who scored 7 out of 7.

 

 

For youth players this event qualified for the Grand Prix with a pool of 18 points into U12 and 48 points in U10. The points were distributed as per below table with new ranking.